The new Tompkins Center for History and Culture is progressing towards its April 2019 opening. There’s not much to see from t he outside, since this is an interior renovation, albeit a major, to-the-studs renovation. Some non-load bearing walls have been removed and the interior has been opened up. Back in October, the History Center spearheaded a community effort, called “Moving History Forward”, to move its thousands of historical artifacts from their old location in Gateway Center to the new TCHC a couple blocks away. Not only did it engage the community (the move required 330 volunteers), it also saved about $40,000 in moving expenses.

“The intent of the exhibits at the History Center in Tompkins County is to connect audiences to meaningful history and narratives about the past, present and future of the region through the use of interactive, immersive, media and object-based experiences. For this project, Tessellate designed a flexible series of modular Story Pods to work as a physical, visual, and technical system to accommodate current and future needs of the museum. This allows for an open floor plan, use of vertical space and height, dynamic header text/images, visitor seating, accommodating for groups, and the blend of physical, interactive and media design offered an optimal storytelling experience.”

Facade installation continues on the exterior of the City Centre project on the 300 block of East State Street. According to project representatives, all three commercial retail spaces on the ground level have been reserved. Along with the Ale House, the other spaces will be “a financial institution and a new dining experience from a beloved local restaurateur”. The rumor mill has suggested a couple of names for that restaurateur, and that the initial concept was to be Italian, but with the opening of Pasta Vitto across the street, the tenant is taking the restaurant in a new direction.

Retail and office spaces are available for lease through Pyramid Brokerage’s David Huckle. The first floor Commons-facing units are being offered at $24/square foot (3-5 year lease), and the second and third floor office space is being offered for $22.50-$24/square foot. The retail spaces are 2,674 SF, 2,900 SF and 9,210 SF, which can be combined by a deep-pocketed lessee for a maximum of 16,241 SF. The minimum leaseble office space is 2,900 SF (which Pyramid describes as being about enough for seven people in a Class A environment), and the maximum is 33,832 SF (enough for 135 workers). The online as says a 2022 completion, which is overly, overly conservative. I would take a guess at Q4 2019 or Q1 2020. Obviously not the Spring 2019 they originally hoped for, but there have been numerous weather issues that delayed the concrete pours for weeks. The rest of the steel frame should rise faster since the tower portion (floors 6-12) is only a fraction of the building’s overall footprint.

Cornell’s new Fine Arts Library (FAL) is coming along. The Mui Ho Fine Arts Library will occupy the top floors of Rand Hall, a ca. 1911 structure that long housed the design studios of the Department of Architecture. My own memories of Rand were relegated to the outside, usually a small throng of architecture students getting their nicotine fix just beyond the entrance (and on a few occasions, substances more illicit).

Rand has always been the workhorse of the Architecture School and a fine example of early 20th century industrial architecture, but for the past twenty years Cornell actively made one attempt or another to get rid of it – in their attempts to build Milstein, the university proposed to tear down Rand not once, but twice. However, there was significant pushback by alumni and historic preservation groups against the idea, and it was one of the factors that weighed into the Koolhaas design for Milstein Hall, which functions as more an addition to the AAP School than a replacement.

The interior will consist of three levels of mezzanine shelving for the 125,000-volume Fine Arts Library’s collection, as well as interspersed work/study spaces. The library stacks will consist of “inverted ziggurats” accessed by stairs and walkways. Floor-to-ceiling space will range from 48 feet on the north side of the reading room to 7.5 feet in some sections of the library stacks. Long, unobstructed hallways will run the length of Rand Hall. The large variation is meant to convey both grand spaces and “private engagement” with the books. 8,000 square feet of shop space for the AAP program will occupy the first floor. Other features will include reading carrels with built-in monitors and lockable book storage, public computing stations and a seminar room. The roof will host a 1,500 square-foot structural deck, outfitted with base plates for temporary structures as well as power, water and digital connections. The semi-elliptical roof pavilion will be built at a later date.

In this renovation and expansion, Rand’s daylight-factory windows were replaces with single panes, the east stairwell was removed, and a steel canopy is going up over the roof. The building will have two entrances, one public and one for AAP only. In an attempt to limit energy use, the building utilizes rigid foam insulation, installing double-glazed windows and all mechanical systems are being replaced. Like Cornell’s other Central Campus building, Rand/FAL is tied into the Combined Heat and Power system, which uses a mix of renewable and conventional fuel (mostly natural gas) sources.

Beautiful historic spaces with modern amenities. These apartments are truly unique. Original 1914 wood rafters and exposed wood deck ceilings, steel beams, and brick surfaces paired with completely new utilities and modern design features

• super-efficient air source heat pumps (heat and AC)• all LED lighting• brand new appliances (including dish washer and garbage disposal)• tasteful modern cabinets with soft close hardware• beautiful tile bathrooms with modern frameless glass shower enclosures• freshly refinished original distressed hardwood floors• Air tight spray foam insulation and high-performance rigid foam on the roof• Sprinkler system for fire safety

Prices range from $1200-1300/month plus electric*

Included in the rent:

• WiFi Internet**• Garbage and recycling disposal• Water service

Apartments are substantially complete and available for a January 1 occupancy

*heat/AC and cooking are all electric, this is a fossil fuel free building

**building is NOT equipped with cable, internet is provided by high speed fiber optic line

$1200-$1300/month is more than the 75% AMI below-market units they were originally aiming for, but not by much – $1200/month works out to $48k-$52k/year, or 80-90% of the local AMI of $59k. “Workforce housing”, to borrow a Visum Development Group term for the 80-90% bracket.

The biggest deviation from the plans appears to be that the passage into the former Ithaca Journal press building has not been built, and instead of vegetation and hardscaping for the amphitheater and court pavers, it’s only vegetation. It’s not clear if the amphitheater and west entry to the press building will be built at a later time.

All in all, this is a great project to have in Ithaca’s Downtown. It extends the vitality of the Commons westward in a form sympathetic to the neighborhood and physical surroundings, making use of a vacant building. It also enhances Press Bay Alley by generating more foot traffic next door. It will provide complementary attractions to make downtown a more engaging place for visitors, and supplies a bit of new moderate-income housing. A big win for the city of gorges.

We’re starting to see some of the face materials being attached to the Canopy Hilton’s exterior.The brick veneer is Bowerston Shale Company Red Smooth blend. The bumpout with the industrial-style bay windows will use a darker and browner blend called “Pioneer Smooth”. Some of the “Sauteed Mushroom” fiber cement panels are also visible underneath the scaffolding. “Rockport Grey” and “Dark Ash” (light grey and dark grey) fiber cement panels will be used on the upper levels and to provide visual interest being the bricked spaces. Most of the sheathing is in place, as are most of the windows.The bridge blue bands around some of the windows is probably sealant/waterproofing material.

An interesting little detail here – during the excavation, some remnant fragments were found from the former Stand Theater, which occupied the site from 1917 until its demolition in 1993. It was a grand building in its time, designed in an Egyptian Revival theme (which the Carey Building emulated when it was built a few years later) and capable of sitting 1,650 in golden age splendor. But the theater was never well designed for the transition from stage to screen, and after decades of decay, it closed first in 1976, and then reopened for a few years at the end of the 1970s into the 1980s for live shows, but the expense of maintenance proved a burden on shoestring budgets. Although on the tail end of urban renewal, the car was still king in the early 1990s, and a parking lot was deemed a better alternative to a decaying theater whose revitalization attempts had failed. A few of the more decorative pieces that were found will be put on display in an exhibit inside the hotel lobby.

The curious details of that sale makes me think of a never-completed story the Voice was working on involving the Fairfield. Not long after the Voice launched, the then-owners reached out in an email, saying they had constructed and opened the Fairfield, and after being open almost two years, “we can attest that there is no need for hotel rooms since demand is on a downward slide and we are having trouble servicing our debt. We also feel the Ithaca City officials are artificially generating demand hype to attract more hotel developers along with promises of tax abatement.” We had worked out this idea where their story would be part one, and getting the city and business officials to respond would be part two.

I did an interview with the Fairfield owner and manager, but to prove their claim wasn’t just their hotel and that it was a citywide/regional problem, we needed hard data, proprietary information on occupancy rates and things like Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR). The regional data of all hotels combined did not back up the claim, and with none of the Fairfield’s peer hotels were willing to take part or even support or refute the Fairfield owners’ claims, there was an inability to expand the story beyond the Fairfield’s anecdotal experience, and so it never moved beyond a first draft. It was the first in-depth story I had worked on that failed to pan out.

In retrospect, I suspect the truth was somewhere in the middle. Given that one of the boutique hotels was cancelled, and how much time was needed for the new downtown hotels to obtain financing, there was clearly some concern from lenders about what the market could support. But because those new hotels are opening over a period of a few years, and local economic growth has continued, the worst fears of the hotel “boom” have been avoided.